Issues of Programming
by noctisxsol
Summary: Akahiko Kayaba is a brilliant Game designer, but a game designer does not necessarily a good programmer make. One-shot crack. Rated T for mild language and grammar.


**Issues of Programming**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own SAO, and I'm not making any money from this story.**

 **That said, the world this hypothetical train-wreaks of a story take place in is AU, because isn't every fanfiction, more or less? IT'S MY STORY AND I'LL MAKE IT AS DIFFERENT FROM CANNON AS I WANT! The premise of change is that Kirito knows a bit more about both programming and cheating, as well as a willingness to take the unorthodox route. Levels of crack vary from almost repairable to shattered to sub-atomic particles, leaning toward the latter.**

 **Text key**

"speaking" _"thinking"_ **System information** -Scene info-

And with that, let the madness begin!

-Aincrad, floor 75, Boss Room-

 _"I have to defeat Heathcliff, but how am I supposed to do that? His shield can block any attack from the front, and he's agile enough to keep up with me at full speed. His shield doesn't seem to slow him down at all and it's large enough that I can't just use my Dual Blades to attack around it. But going around it is my only option. It's not like I can just break his shield, his defensive skill is maxed and pushed even further by his shield. My swords would break before I ever made a dent in his defenses."_ Kirito stared at his opponent, Heathcliff, the avatar of Akahiko Kayaba, the genius game designer that imagined the world they were trapped in. He knew every attack art of the game, having imagined every single one of them. Most formidable of all was his signature tower shield, able to stop any attack dead in its tracks with its infinite defensive power. All of the normal rules of the game seemed poised to give victory to their designer. _"What am I supposed to do against the one that designed this world…Wait, maxed stats, infinite durability, Designer… "_ "Akahiko Kayaba, I will defeat you."

Kirito unequipped his swords to the confusion of everyone watching, and instead summoned a small blacksmith's hammer. He charged and the hammer began to glow. Smirking, Heathcliff raised his shield to block the attack. The hammer touched the steel, and nothing happened for a long second until the younger man raised his off hand and gave the shield a flick with a glowing finger, causing it to shatter. The shock on the game designer's face could not be expressed in words. "That's… impossible! My shield was made with maxed stats! It's durability couldn't have been brought to zero with just those two hits! What did you do?!"

"Check your shield's stats before it finishes breaking."

 **Liberator:**

 **Durability; -3660 (+300 Reinforced Buff, 2:59:50 remain)**

 **Defense; -3660 (+300 Reinforced Buff, 2:59:50 remain)**

"It's stats are… negative! That's impossible, all you did was buff it, there's no way that the stats could go negative from a buff!"

"It looks like I was right, you've been too busy designing games to properly delve into their programming. I initiated what's known as an overflow glitch. I made the defensive and durability values of your shield exceed the maximum , causing them to wrap around and become negative. And by the way, I'm somewhat disappointed that you didn't bother to make sure that only one person could be logged onto an account at once."

"What?"

"I just hacked onto your GM account. It wasn't that hard, I was your greatest fan after all. Your username is obviously Heathcliff, and your password wasn't that hard to guess. Now then, I'll just initiate a forced log-out, and hope that this doesn't cross over into the territory of a different anime."

"Kirito. I really thought that when I was defeated I would be at peace and impressed by your willpower to break the rules of the game, but I feel really let down by this actually. Maybe it has something to do with how you completely ruined the immersion. Whatever, I guess I'll die in prison waiting for a trail concerning all of this. Now, I just have one last request. Go play outside!"

-Reality-

Kirigaya Kazuto slowly and unsteadily rose to his feet. With the aid of his IV drip he staggered out of his room to find pandemonium as nurses were scurrying to try to take care of all of the released gamers. Kazuto tried to get the attention of one, but none were paying attention to the babbling woman. Eventually the heroic gamer managed to limp his way to the front desk where he found a doctor hitting on the receptionist. He gathered all of his determination and strode toward the lazy doctor, only nearly falling, and grasped the front of the slacker's coat with all his might. "Where is the manager of the SAO wing, I have some very serious questions."

The doctor calmly removed the atrophied hand and smoothed his coat. "I am him. Are you here to complain that your grandchild isn't receiving good enough care, because I'm not even getting paid to take care of them."

"That… Actually explains quite a bit. I mean, I was wondering why no one figured out a way to remove the NervGear without killing anyone in over a year, much less that no one sent any in-game help. I mean seriously, how hard could it be to remove the internal battery and unplug the thing at the same time so it doesn't have the power to kill. I was worried that Japan had lost every single one of its technologically minded inhabitants to the game, but it turns out that they were just lazy."

"Who do you think you are grandma?"

"I am Kirito, and I'm the reason all your patients are finally waking up!"

"Who?"

"Seriously? Does no-one care what went in that world? I mean, it's just the fate of a few thousand lives at stake, who bothers to keep up with that? Or was no one able to get a feed to be able to watch, because that would just make me sad. Whatever. Just tell me what room is assigned to Asuna."

-Asuna's Room-

"She's not waking up. I activated the mass log-out, so she should be waking up, unless… No, this is an entirely different anime and a different type of MMO. So obviously someone blocked her log-out. Well, I could wait a couple months for a lead, then go into a different game on the same server to lead a daring escape to rescue her, or I could just remove her NervGear now and save myself the trouble. Doctor, do something useful and get me some clay or paper mache or something I can make a thin mask out of."

Five minutes later the doctor returned with a variety of craft supplies, demanding that he get at least partial credit for discovering a way to save people stuck in NervGear Comas.

"Doctor, I'm assuming you know that removing the NervGear makes it let out microwaves to fry the player's brain. The question it seems that no one has asked is 'how does it know when it is being removed so it can activate the kill ray?' The answer has been staring everyone in the face the whole time, the camera. There are far too many waves in the air for activity to be the main factor, and it has no other sensors that would be able to tell the machine if it's being removed. So the answer of how to remove the helmet without killing the wearer can be answered rather simply by giving it a decoy to make it think nothing has changed. The facial recognition is fairly rudimentary, so long as there is at least one eye, a nose, and a mouth in its view it things a person is wearing it. The is a short 'grace period' made to allow for medical transport, so it's perfect safe to slide the mask in and take the person out."

In an act vaguely reminiscent of a certain archeologist, Kazuto slid the mask in place and removed the helmet. Asuna's eyes fluttered open after a few seconds, and landed on her game husband. "Kirito, you need to get in touch with my father. Sugou Nobuyuki is in charge of the servers now, and he's trying to kidnap some of the SAO Players for an illegal experiment!"

"Now I'm really glad I didn't wait for that lead. I probably would have been stuck fighting him, and he would use some cheating gimmic and stab me while being a major creeper and molesting you. This way is much better. Now legs go and live happily ever after and never play and VR games ever again. For that is the best way to honor the career of a great game designer that didn't bother to think about programming."

-Alternate-

Wait, you mean to tell me that they took this picture just by flying really high in the tree? As in, they actually programmed all the way up there on one map? Didn't they divide the world at all? That server is going to crash someday, and I'm not going to feel responsible. Anyway, I need to save Asuna. I could try to fight my way through the tree, but I think it would be better to scale the outside and clip through that ceiling the supposedly added. After all, it's a tree and since it basically runs on the same engine as SAO, you should be able to climb trees just fine, so long as you have the skill for it. Or I could just force a log out by crashing the server, since they apparently don't believe in loading in chunks. Or I could just send a PM to my girlfriend and have her stall her sneaking out scheme for when I'm at the base of the tree, and I can just catch her instead of getting just a card key from her."

"Kirito, don't be that guy. Just go and beat the ass at his own game. It's more fun like that, trust me."

"But that's boring! I wanna show him that he can't make the rules of the game! I mean, beating Heathcliff could be considered a miracle, so it would be anti-climatic for this to just be a sword-y stab-y bleed-y fight."

"Kirito, I'm planning on setting a feed to watch you work. I want a good show. Do it the right and unnecessarily difficult way that doesn't break immersion. Even if you're playing a game with elves and flying. It's the principle of the thing."

"Fiiinee. But I'm hacking in some extra mods just in case things get dice-y. A cross-bow shouldn't break too much from the theme, right?"

"Know what? I give up. Do it your way. I'll find something else interesting to watch instead."

"So you're saying I should just send my adopted fairy daughter to help open the cell and catch my wife when she jumps down?"

 **Done**. This was just an idea floating around in my head that I wanted to get out. Hope you enjoyed it and found pointing out more game-y ways to win at SAO humorous. My first Non-naruto Fanfiction that I put on , and my First SAO fic. Please give constructive criticism in a review. Thank you for reading.


End file.
